Thursday, 24 May 2012

They are the black middle class of South Africa. They are the Forerunners. And they are taking part in a very disjointed movie.

I'm thinking this movie wasn't aimed at me. For a long time in the movie we see the four main characters in their world of being middle class, and I'm not sure of what the excitement is. As middle class myself, I'm going 'is there something special about this?' If we had more context for why this was unusual (presuming it is, it is a movie documentary about it), then that might mean something. It's as if the movie thinks we already have that context, and this is just a piece of the puzzle.

And then we get them interacting with the more cultural (read: older) traditions, of going back to the village where they lived, of joining with family, of interacting with others who deal with that, and then we see the conflict. Although it's very abbreviated and thus seems one step removed from being a problem. They do interact, so where's the tension?

This film would have benefited from being longer and giving more context.